Voila! The Greeks observed that there is nothing new under the sun. The poignancy of Shakespeare is universal, the Beatles are timeless and Cheryl Crow will be listened to with awe in fifty years. What am I saying? It is this. Very little of what I present here is not something that has not been observed in some form by some other colleague, mentor, professor or admired writer/thinker.

The Law is a seamless web! Hard cases make bad law. Criminal Law involves the violation of conformity to the minimum requirements of a civilized society. My favorite adage (and also the official mission logo of my law firm) holds that process affects result. I took that from my first year property professor at Boston College Law School, Mary Ann Glendon, who is one of the most frighteningly smart minds to which I have been exposed.

Children in New Guinea watch no television and have superior problem-solving skills than those of their American contemporaries.

I love nothing more than a case that crawls across my desk rife with bureaucratic incongruity and contradiction, hobbled by a seeming information void and very vexing to a troubled hardworking client who plays by the rules and has done everything expected but can't get that license reinstated, or can't get terminated from probation. That is where and why I go to work. Begin with the end in mind as author Stephen Covey advises. Comfort, advise, inform, and protect the client. Always.